I'm reading this with interest as we moved out to Bromley last year after years in East Dulwich. At the end of the day the really high property prices and the need for more space led us to look at other areas. Once we'd seen a few houses we were decided as you could just get so much more house and garden for your money. We were also looking at schools and the playing fields and less pressure on places attracted us. Things may change but at the moment we can see which schools the kids will go to at both primary and secondary level and know that they'll be able to walk to them (my partner grew up in London and had two hours commuting each day to get to his church school and we wanted to avoid that for any of us). We also knew we would be state educating our kids all the way through and wanted to be as sure as we could that we wouldn't be wanting to move again in four years. That's not to say that the schools here are better than those in ED there are pros and cons with each as there are with living in each place. We balanced up the commute for both of us, the schools, facilities for the kids, house and size of mortgage (and spent a lot of weekends dragging around the suburbs of SE London). I think having kids is the thing that really connects you into any community unless you are active in other ways through your work, volunteering or church. I was definitely in the using ED for sleeping and the odd bit of socialising camp before I had a child and started working part time. I miss loads of things about ED but it is only down the road and I find myself going back less and less and I've met lots of lovely people here (through kids!).